Hands on with Nokia's 808 41Mp camphone
Lumia 610 too
First look If a company needed some luck right now, then Nokia would certainly fit the bill. Having partnered with Microsoft to deliver a new range of smartphones based on Windows Phone 7, it consequently shares a platform with the likes of HTC and Samsung. Still, Nokia is thinking lucky because it reckons it can deliver services on WinPho7 that will give it the edge.
Nokia's 808 41Mp camera phone based on Symbian 3
And, as luck would have it, after months of rain, Nokia had picked one of the sunniest days of the year for a rooftop event in London yesterday. On show was the Lumia 610 – its budget WinPho 7 handset – and the 808, a Symbian smartie worth shouting about given its PureView camera featuring a 41Mp sensor.
Nokia Lumia 610: Windows Phone 7 on a budget
With Leila Martine, Microsoft's Windows Phone director taking part in the presentation, Nokia’s mention of the Symbian 3 powered 808 seemed just a little embarrassing for the WinPho love-fest – like having an ex-girlfriend attend your first wedding anniversary. Still, even though the message from all assembled was to “differentiate us from within the Windows ecosystem” as Conor Pierce VP, Nokia West Europe put it, evidently, Nokia is still free to differentiate with its platform choices too.
Flown in for the event, and presumably wired on coffee, the WinPho head honcho barely drew breath as she evangelised, remarking, “I challenge you to find a smartphone that is better than the [Nokia/WinPho] innovation that's about to come to market.” Er, so we’re supposed to find something in the market that’s better than something that’s not in the market... yet? Mmmh... Again the message from MS was to “Offer a third ecosystem to the market” with Martine’s figures of 85,000 WinPho 7 apps, growing at a rate of 300 a day and 110,000 developers on board, suggesting that beyond iOS and Android, the third way is certainly gaining traction.
So given these slight conflicts of interest, who wore the best dress at the party? Nokia’s new Lumia 610 – that’s a cheap date but feels good in the hand – or its image conscious 808, with its hidden secrets that will keep us waiting a while longer to discover what’s really going on under the surface?
With the Lumia 610 available in early June for deals of around £15/month, both MS and Nokia are keen to tout this handset as the most affordable way to join the third way and tap into these differentiating services. Among these are Nokia Music – with its Mix Radio feature that allows free downloading of music channels for off-line listening – plus Nokia Drive, Maps and Transport that all help in getting around. Also coming is Nokia City Lens, it’s augmented reality app that’s still in beta.
Next page: Image is everything..?
COMMENTS
Why did they need to replace Symbian?
The issue with Symbian was a grotty interface.
As I understand it, they fixed that for the N8.
The core is good, with excellent battery life.
I hope the 808 is a huge success.
Re: blimey...
More evil than Google?
More evil than Apple?
More evil than Oracle?
Highly unlikely, in all cases.
If you want evil-free, you're shit out of luck. So pick your evil-of-choice and shut the fuck up.
This conversation again?
The raw pixels are used to create a sharper, "normal" resolution image using a proprietary processing algorithm.
- the output is not 41MP
- the sensor is HUGE, so it's not just an excercise in shrinking pixels
- the lens is very high quality (and F2.4), not your average phone lens
- it has a separate processor for images
- Microsoft has tight hardware specs on WinPho, so it cannot used with specialized hardware like this
blimey...
Why is that the same old people every time feel the need to tell the world about their own hatred of something?
We get it, you don't like it. But you know what, many people do!
And Barry, why do YOU pop up every time with the same old FUD? Do you just copy and paste?
Windows phone simly isn't a 'dire' experience. You can 'not like' it, but dire? Get real. If you want to moan about something, at least use realistic targets.
EVERY time a windows phone pops up, the same few people shout up and say the same old things.
It's boring. Move on. You seem to hate it, and yet you are attracted like moths to every single WP post...
It's like beaten wife syndrome.
Luck?
Ever though of what the situation would be today had Nokia not "partnered" with microsoft? We see now, 80% of the smartphone market is split between Android and Apple. Of the Android share, Samsung is the runaway success. Boy, are they glad Blamer stuffed his trojan in. Had Nokia gone with Android instead, its almost certain the current Samsung share would be split evenly between them - possibly even with Nokia edging it. All those weasley words about "not being able to differentate enough" hasn't harmed them a jot, and was clearly a straw man given the (then) talent at Nokia. Instead we see this rounding-error 1.5% market share, with 101 reasons anyone not forced to avoids it like the plague.
